Sunday, February 19, 2012

I would blog more if I had an easier way to upload photos onto my laptop. I cannot insert the card anywhere, so I am sorta stuck. Any suggestions?

Moving on, pinterest is starting to make a lot of sense and provide much guidance in my life. Since having kids, my hair has turned curly. (Now might be the right time to explain that my self worth started to free fall after I embraced not making even the most minimal effort with my appearance 6 weeks ago, and I found that my mental health required a more balanced approach to the issue. I just can't pull of effortless!) Apparently this phenomenon is known as "hormonally curly hair." Anyway, the problem is that it isn't curly enough (or straight enough). (right after embracing the curl, Porter's 1st birthday party last april). It is more wrinkled than anything, and the haircut I got last spring increased the wrinkling, causing me to put away the flat iron and try to go with the curly look. My strategy has been to wash my hair at night and sleep on the towel-dried result. It sort of works some of the time. Occasionally I have supplemented with curling irons and so forth, but generally this takes too long. So when pinterest introduced me tothe sock bun technique, I tried it that very morning.

The girl has gorgeous hair, so I worried that the technique would not translate well to the less well-endowed tresses like mine. My assessment is that if your hair is really long, it will work great. My results were good, but my hair is too short for it. Because it all gets piled on top of your head, most of undermost layer will not make it into the bun. I had to take a curling iron to those sections. But it does work and it is super easy. I also found this technique and I think this might work better for medium length hair like mine. I will do it tonight and report back tomorrow. I like this girl because she is faster and doesn't talk too much and waste my beauty-learning time. I like the results she gets here, but she does it with a curling iron and I really am looking for short cuts. She says it only takes ten minutes, but it would take me 30, I am sure of it.

In more important news, we had a great weekend. Yesterday we did yard work together and then went to the Maryland side of Great Falls park. I probably enjoyed watching my kids clambering over the rocks even more than I enjoyed the waterfalls. Andrew had made his own bow and arrow and quiver, which he brought and wore at the park. Everyone commented on it which thrilled and embarrassed him. I am just so happy to see that, even though he no longer wears capes and believes he has superpowers (he thought he could shoot lasers out of his hands if he knelt in the park and prayed first--was it wrong that I told him it worked??), he is still doing little boy things. The bow and arrow deal has been around for probably 2 years. I wish he would get back into setting traps all over the house. This little phase goes so fast! I had a lot of thoughts and ideas about helping them to foster hobbies and interests that will enrich their little lives (rock collecting is an obvious one, from the haul we brought home, but so is rock climbing, which is doable, too).

Now I am off to enjoy some quality tv with Brigham, who did not go to sleep last night at all btw, and yet he was the one to go to church with the boys this morning while I slept until 11:30. He didnt even wake me up, since Porter had a terrible night and he heard me dealing with him. I don't deserve him. He is even better than Rick, from The Walking Dead, our new favorite tv show. I am thinking of giving up on Downton Abbey. My desire to disappear into 19th and early 20th century upper class Britain still cannot get over how dumb this escapist program is.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Is it possible that you have not heard the big story about Mitt Romney transporting the family dog in his wind-resistant kennel atop their car one day in 1983? I have seen it everywhere. At first I thought that he had just strapped the dog down sans protection given the uproar, but despite having customized the crate with wind-shields--not to mention that the dog was totally unharmed--Romney is getting a lot of coverage as an animal abuser.

Ok, I do not think I would transport my dog for a few hours in this way. Given who I am, the crate would fly off the car and cause death and injury to many. But to give a little perspective on this, do you know how animals unfit (by size) for the passenger compartment travel on airplanes? Every year, thousands of pets are crated and put in the cargo hold where there is no temperature control, where luggage shifts and rolls, and where is is impossible to check on the animal? It sounds awful, but thousands of Americans do it every year. It has been the standard way to bring your pet with you on a cross country move (or vacation).

The real rub for me, though, is how biased our media coverage is. NPR has devoted more time to covering how Romney transported his dog for a few hours on a trip that took place 3 decades ago (resulting in no harm or injury to the animal, and which method was superior to the standard method for airline travel today) than it did to Obama's radical position opposing comfort care to dying babies who survived their abortions for a few hours. And the people who are beating their self-righteous chests over Romney's wholly unharmed dog will defend Obama's stance on the Born Alive Bill (and his subsequent lies about it) for the rest of their lives, once they hear about it. And the media will exploit a political non-issue like the 1983 car trip while giving Obama a pass time and again on policies that would offend or disturb average Americans.

I am really not a one issue voter, but I hate abortion. Try reading about how it is done and not coming away with a deep sadness and sense that a terrible wrong is being done. I cannot understand how more Democrats do not try to extricate their party from pro-abortion position. I know the preferred term is pro-choice (while those who prefer it still use anti-choice or anti-abortion to refer to the pro-lifers), but when you consider the lengths they go to to prevent women from accessing information relevant to their decision (they hate consent laws--you can't pierce your ears without a parent, but pro-abortion activists think girls should get abortions without them, and condemn mandatory sonograms before accessing an abortion) it fits. Choices are best made when one has as much access to as many facts as possible. Wouldn't it be better for a mother to decide against having an abortion when she obtains more facts than to have one and regret it when she later learns more relevant information?

Unfortunately, for the unborn and for the voters, an even-handed accounting of the facts is hard to come by.